The Maltese language is the official language of Malta, spoken by around 400,000 inhabitants in the Maltese island, and around 300,000 - 500,000 more speakers around the world. Maltese is a mixture of old Sicilian Arabic and Italian, with a sprinkling of English words. The underlying grammar is semitic, while around 60% of the lexicon is Italian. It is the only language with a semitic grammar that is written using a Latin script. With Malta's entry in the European Union, Maltese has also become an official language of the European Union.